How Female Protagonists Should be Portrayed

As the audience for the games industry broadens to include people from all backgrounds, the number of female gamers is rising and the need to represent them is crucial. As females have not always been addressed in an appropriate way in the games industry, the Daily Reaction crew of Sebastian and Dan use today’s ‘12 days of Christmas’ carol – Nine ladies dancing – to talk about their favorite female protagonists.
(Assassin's Creed 3: Liberation, Culture, Industry, Mass Effect 3, Next-Gen, PS3, Tomb Raider, Wii U, Xbox 360)

Anything that is not like Samus in Metroid Other M is a perfectly good start.

A good female character doesn't even have to be physically powerful to be likeable. For anyone who's into animation, look into Disney renaissance Princess characters. They weren't always a part of the action and fighting, but they were still strong characters who helped drive the story forward.

A character of ANY gender who meets a trial and tries to face it (whether they succeed or fail) with an interesting personality can win an audience over.

I hear people often ticket off the same boxes when discussing female protagonists - Strong, independent, intelligent and generally things most lead characters will have.

How about a game where we follow your typical woman through some tragic events in her life and we see her change gradually throughout, perhaps the choice we, the player, make will change her outcome.

I see women and guys discuss this female character stuff and it's always they have to be strong, self sufficient and all that jazz. It seems to me if you want to make a serious character driven game, you characters need to be flawed. They need to be normal and make mistakes and do things others won't like. In fact, this goes beyond female protagonists. It's for all protagonists and all characters for these sort of games.

If you're talking with action games then I hardly think it matters - you could be playing as a giant dagger wielding block of tofu (oh yes, it's been done - you know what I mean) and it wouldn't make a difference because they're faceless characters.

Female Shepard is not a good representation, Sure, you get to pick Shepard's sex but gender is a set of social guidelines/behaviors based around a person's sex. Usually well-intentioned guidelines, sometimes a religous cult.

FemShep doesn't get "girl talks" or a girls' night out and BroShep doesn't have poker night with the other guys or do have male-bonding stuff. The lack of that stuff - or at least the lack of the option to have these moments - just weirds me out a little since they go through such great lengths to socialize the character. They just changed some pronouns and love interests and called it a day.

Dragon Age Origins not only had gender related discussions regarding your character (if you made her female), but race as well, so yeah DA2 is a bit disappointing for neutralizing that consequence of your choices.

My vote is for any way the developers/publishers feel like portraying them!

Why?

Well, they are the ones setting down ungodly sums of money, working ungodly amounts of hours, using their creative and financial energies to create a medium for people to enjoy!

The should not listen a single bit to what "gaming journalists", rights wing-left wing politicians, feminist groups, peta, ect...ect... have to say.

all of those above mentioned can create a game themselves and portray women, men, trannies ect... in any light they see fit, its called freedom of speech, and it still attempts to exist to this day, though for how long it will, who knows!